A Crafter’s Book of Santas: More Than 50 Festive Projects by Leslie Dierks | August 21, 2009

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this book. I found some real gems in it.

I was especially intrigued with the carved wooden Santas. I haven’t done woodcarving since I was a child & I love the finished product. The Elfin Santa features a little guy carved from a small block of wood. This guy would be so sweet tucked into a corner as a surprise for your little ones.

To me, with handcrafted Santas, it’s all about the face. If the face doesn’t have that beneficent child-man twinkly-eyed countenance, it doesn’t make me look twice. That’s a problem I had with many of the projects in this book: the face was just cheesy. It doesn’t matter how elaborate the robe is, or how many gewgaws Santa has pouring out of his sack, if the face is slapdash, it’s not a successful project.

I like the patterns in this book. They could be used for other projects if you’re an experienced crafter. This book could be worth buying for the patterns alone. The directions for the projects are detailed & relatively easy to understand.

There’s the Jingle Bell Santa Trio which I found delightful. I am fascinated by papier mache. This looks like a difficult project to me. But the face on the squinty-eyed Santa is absolutely delightful.

The Victorian Father Christmas is unique & delightful in a nostalgic & childlike way. It’s also a papier mache project.

There are some needlepoint projects in the book which are quite nice. I do almost every kind of needlework, but I don’t needlepoint.

I grow birdhouse gourds for projects & have quite a few curing in my basement, so the gourd Santas in this book really took my fancy. The Moon & Stars Santa is one I’d like to try & is fairly straightforward in its instructions. The Santa Cat Gourd is a stunner & one that I very much would like to try. Again, I would buy this book for the gourd projects alone.

I enjoyed reading the introduction because I just love Christmas & its history. I always start yearning for cool-weather holidays during the dog days of summer.

There are lots of crafts for beginners in this book. I think the finished products aren’t things I would want to store away for future generations, but they’d be fun to do with the children & grandchildren. There are crafts that use fusible web, polymer clay, cotton balls, & other things you may have in your craft basket already.